Dollars & Sense

They’re overwhelmed, humbled, proud, thankful. And best of all, the deans, directors and principals of the faculties, programs and colleges at U of T are excited. They have strong academic leaders. With 175 chairs fully endowed (up from 15 in 1995) and 80 new joint chairs created with affiliated teaching hospitals, U of T has been able to attract and keep internationally recognized professors and researchers. They have talent, as all qualified students are now guaranteed financial accessibility, with endowment for student aid leaping from $68.7 million to $500 million. And they have space to perform, as some 35 new and renovated buildings across the three campuses are the sparkling result of the largest physical expansion in 40 years. But numbers tell only part of the story. Here’s an inside look at how the campaign is transforming U of T.

They’re overwhelmed, humbled, proud, thankful. And best of all, the deans, directors and principals of the faculties, programs and colleges at U of T are excited. They have strong academic leaders. With 175 chairs fully endowed (up from 15 in 1995) and 80 new joint chairs created with affiliated teaching hospitals, U of T has been able to attract and keep internationally recognized professors and researchers. They have talent, as all qualified students are now guaranteed financial accessibility, with endowment for student aid leaping from $68.7 million to $500 million. And they have space to perform, as some 35 new and renovated buildings across the three campuses are the sparkling result of the largest physical expansion in 40 years. But numbers tell only part of the story. Here’s an inside look at how the campaign is transforming U of T.

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
A landmark donation of $25 million from Ted and Loretta Rogers will position the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as the largest and best of its kind in Canada and among the top in North America, says Dean Tas Venetsanopoulos. The gift supports close to 100 student scholarships a year, attracting great students and researchers from around the world.

The creation of 29 endowed chairs in various areas – from aerospace to materials science and engineering – has attracted new faculty, revitalized graduate education and enhanced research capacity.

The 400,000-square-foot Bahen Centre for Information Technology (shared with the Faculty of Arts and Science) was made possible with a lead donation from John and Margaret Bahen. The centre brings together researchers and private industry in disciplines ranging from computer engineering to mechanical engineering for collaborative information-technology research. Venetsanopoulos believes that this cross-pollination of disciplines could lead to breakthroughs in such areas as wireless communications, optical electronics, nanotechnology, computer design and software engineering.

The new Lassonde Institute for Engineering Geoscience (a gift from Pierre Lassonde) has invigorated and modernized the traditional discipline, attracting geophysicists and environmental scientists, among other researchers. Also garnering international attention is the Jeffrey Skoll BASc/MBA Program, which enables students to acquire both engineering and management skills.

Says Venetsanopoulos: “The campaign has allowed us to do wonderful things and given us a step up.”

Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
“We have to practise what we preach,” says Dean Larry Wayne Richards. Fittingly, the campaign enabled the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design to make improvements to its century-old College Street headquarters.

Spectacular new interior spaces include the Shore + Moffat Library, which Richards calls “the intellectual and spiritual heart of the faculty;” the Eric Arthur Gallery, which showcases internal and international exhibits; the new Vanbots Administrative Area (a gift of Vanbots Construction Corporation); the HOK Digital Studio, with its 14 high-end computer and output workstations plus 3-D visualization studio; and the state-of-the-art PCL Seminar Room.

These phase-one renovations are “about solving functional problems for teaching and research needs,” says Richards. “Having a well-designed environment goes a long way in boosting our collective creativity.”

In the area of student aid, $2 million has been earmarked for 22 new named scholarships. Other gifts support an international lecture and exhibition series, as well as computing needs. The Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design, made possible by Heather Reisman and 45 other donors, is Canada’s first endowed visiting chair in architecture and will bring a renowned international architect to the faculty each year. A donation from the late Thomas Howarth, past dean of the faculty, endowed the Howarth-Wright Graduate Fellowship, allowing students to study at Taliesin West – the Arizona studio of architecture titan Frank Lloyd Wright.

Faculty of Arts and Science
Quantum information at U of T took a quantum leap forward, as did the study of 3-D imaging of subsurface ore bodies, the history and modern state of Israel, race and labour issues in modern U.S. history, to name a few – thanks to the creation of four professorships and 27 endowed chairs. New chairs include the Senator Jerahmiel S. and Carole S. Grafstein Chair in Medieval Jewish Studies, and the May Gluskin Chair in Canadian History.

Science enjoyed a major rejuvenation through a gift that transformed chemistry’s home into the John and Edna Davenport Chemical Research Building. It is one of the best research spaces in North America, says Dean Pekka Sinervo. Additions, upgrades and renovations to numerous labs and classrooms, including the 724 Solutions Laboratories for Wireless Information Technology and the Carl O. Mitchell Laboratory, have created a unique learning environment in which professors and students can use modern technology to the fullest.

“The contributions of our friends and alumni have been essential to our success in ensuring the highest quality education for all our students and in promoting excellence in research and scholarship,” says Sinervo.

Faculty of Dentistry
Campaign contributions have enabled U of T to become the “pre-eminent faculty of dentistry in the country,” says Dean David Mock.

The faculty replaced its old and deteriorating clinical dental equipment with state-of-the-art technology, thanks to a donation from SciCan. A gift from Mark Nusbaum and family added a 45-seat audiovisual seminar room with a digital link to a new operatory.

The Arthur Zwingenberger Decanel Chair (donated by SciCan) and the Dr. Lloyd and Mrs. Kay Chapman Chair in Clinical Dentistry make U of T the only dental school in Canada with endowed chairs.

And students can now relax in the new student lounge, created with seed funding from Scotiabank. As well, Altima Dental Centres has provided funding for an attractive and efficient student services area.

Faculty of Forestry
U of T has preferred access to an “outdoor lab” in the form of the Haliburton Forest and Wild Life Reserve. The 60,000-acre, privately owned forest south of Algonquin Park is available to students and faculty, thanks to support from Carl and Susi Brown and the permission of owner and adjunct U of T professor Peter Schleifenbaum. “It’s only the start of what is developing into a major and important research operation that is starting to receive international recognition,” says Dean Rorke Bryan.

The faculty’s first endowed chair in Wood and Composite Products led to the creation of the Collaborative Master’s Program in Wood Engineering, with the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. Now, says Bryan, the faculty has a forest-product research group that, per capita, is one of the best in the world. Tembec Inc., a leading Canadian integrated forest-products company, helped fund the Frank Dottori Chair in Pulp and Paper Engineering.

Student support was also enhanced with three Ontario Graduate Scholarships in Science and Technology, thanks to gifts from Alpa Lumber Inc., and the late Tom Buell and his wife, Phyllis. Friends and alumni contributed about $100,000 to establish the Bernhard Fernow Graduate Fellowship, named after the faculty’s first dean.

Faculty of Information Studies
“The campaign gave us a green light to really rethink the faculty from the ground up,” says Dean Brian Cantwell Smith, adding that support improved curriculum, the physical space, teaching, research, technical infrastructure and even the mindset of the faculty.

IBM Canada donated a “supercomputer” (the RS/ 6000 SP) for sophisticated data mining and computational research. Shared with the rest of the university’s research teams, the computer can process in one second what would take a human 200 days to calculate. Smith says that this kind of computational horsepower could potentially lead to breakthroughs in information retrieval, documentation and classification.

As well, student support has been given a major boost. The Hudsons Bay Charitable Foundation Award is given to a second-year master’s student specializing in archival studies. The Grace Buller Aboriginal Student Scholarship (a gift of the Ontario Library Association) is awarded to an aboriginal information-studies student.

Faculty of Law
“Radical. Unprecedented. Amazing. Overarching,” says Acting Dean Brian Langille of the campaign’s impact on law. “It’s really lit a fire under the place.”

The addition of 16 endowed chairs gives the law school a student-faculty ratio of approximately 9:1, second only to Yale Law School’s. The chairs have created “extraordinary curriculum” in areas such as private law, health law and policy, innovation law and policy, and human rights. Faculty strength also increased in immigration, capital markets, environmental law, comparative and constitutional law, and law and economics. The number of significant scholars in each area has increased, creating a hive of activity, scholarship and student interest. “Once you have that critical mass, there are lots of synergies, including more graduate students, conferences, interaction with the community, policy work with government,” says Langille.

In addition, the Distinguished Visitors Program draws visiting faculty and experts from various fields and from around the world for two-week teaching stays.

The solarium in historic Flavelle House was restored, thanks to a donation from the Hon. Henry N.R. Jackman. As well, three classrooms in Flavelle House were renovated and one has gained the technology to video link with classrooms around the world. The law school also has 12 new faculty offices, and a gift from law firm Fasken Martineau DuMoulin has created a much-needed home for student-run legal-aid clinics.

But Langille says that the most stunning accomplishment of the campaign was raising an $18-million endowment for student financial aid. For undergraduates, this provides for $2 million to be awarded annually on a needs basis to pay the tuition of 40 students and significantly offset costs for more than half the students, making the law school more accessible than ever. Support for graduate students (through such programs as the Graduate Fellowships in Law and Innovation, and the June Callwood Programme in Aboriginal Law, supported by Ronald Rhodes) has also significantly increased enrolment.

Donor generosity, says Langille, has given the faculty an enormous edge, and cemented U of T’s spot among the top five or six law schools in the world.

Faculty of Medicine
Of the $1 billion raised by the campaign, an impressive $228 million went to Faculty of Medicine initiatives. The boost to research, teaching and student aid makes the faculty “number 1 in Canada by a fair margin” and places it “among the best health-sciences faculties in the world,” says Dean David Naylor.

The number of endowed chairs – including the Rose Family Chair in Supportive Care and the Arthur Sommer Rotenberg Chair in Suicide Studies – increased from 14 to 41, and 80 new joint chairs (shared with teaching hospitals) were added during the campaign, enabling medicine to attract and retain top researchers, teachers and students. “At times, the fundraising has been fabulous glue that pulls together the campus and the hospitals,” says Naylor.

The R. Samuel McLaughlin Foundation gave a $50-million donation – the largest gift ever made to the University of Toronto – to create the R. Samuel McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine. The gift was matched not only by the Ontario government through the Ontario Innovation Trust, but also by U of T and four of its research hospitals, bringing the total to $150 million. The virtual medical centre is based in various locations within the university’s health-sciences complex, and supports a network of 30 to 40 researchers in four areas: molecular therapeutics, computational biology, regenerative medicine and global health. The Anne and Max Tanenbaum Chair Program endowed six chairs in biomedical research on campus, and multiple hospitals, creating “synergy and collaboration.”

In capital projects, the Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (with a lead $5-million gift from Terrence Donnelly) once fully funded will bring together researchers from three faculties – medicine, pharmacy, and applied science and engineering – to investigate such projects as how the human genome relates to cell growth and disease. Three major “morale-transforming” renovations are also underway: one at the Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases; another bringing the departments of physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech-language pathology under one roof; a third bringing together the departments of community and family medicine, public health sciences, and health policy, management and evaluation.

A $300,000 donation from the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research – the largest gift ever made by a charitable foundation – helped upgrade the HIV/AIDS lab at the Medical Sciences building. The Ian Anderson Continuing Education Program in End-of-Life Care, established by Margaret Anderson in memory of her husband, educates primary-care physicians and specialists across Canada on how to deal with issues surrounding death and dying. Mark Tanz, Lionel Schipper and Jack and Mary Clark have all made significant gifts to fund Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s research at the Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases.

“Quite simply, if we had not had the support of a massive array of benefactors, this faculty would have lost ground during a period when public funding was tight or diminishing,” says Naylor. “Instead, we have a sense of gaining momentum.” And the end result? “Making life longer and better for people, which is what it’s all about.”

Faculty of Music
Call it an injection of fresh ideas, perspectives and pianos.

Students and faculty will have an opportunity to work with leading composers, thanks to the Michael and Sonja Koerner Distinguished Visitor in Composition and the Roger D. Moore Distinguished Visitor in Composition endowments. They will also receive instruction and critique from renowned artists through the John R. Stratton Visiting Artist and the Wilma and Clifford Smith Visitors in Music endowments.

A new program in collaborative piano will be developed with the addition of two chairs (the R.E. Edwards Chair in Piano Performance and the Lois Marshall Chair in Voice). The Elmer Iseler Chair in Conducting was established thanks to the Vern and Elfrieda Heinrichs Foundation, which also funded the new Centre for Advanced Studies in Choral Music.

Opera remains a major jewel in the faculty’s crown: the endowment of the Opera Production Fund ensures that the faculty will be able to mount two full-scale operas each year, and the new Richard Bradshaw Graduate Fellowship in Opera is now being offered.

Graduate students are now guaranteed funding through such scholarships as the Alexander & Carolyn Drummond Graduate Fellowships in Voice and Organ or Piano Performance, and the Dr. Sam and Dr. Doris Lau Fellowship.

Other contributions enabled the acquisition of new pianos and additions to the faculty’s library, making it the best music collection in Canada and one of the top five in North America. Dean David Beach says it all adds up to “a significant difference” in the faculty’s ability to attract top-level students, faculty, composers and performers.

Faculty of Nursing
Endowed chairs not only attract excellent scholars but help “light the fire” of students, says Dean Dyanne Affonso. One new chair and six new joint chairs have been established, including two that have been recently created at University Health Network and endowed by RBC Financial Group. These areas include cardiovascular, oncology, pediatrics, mental health, maternal-child health and women’s health nursing research. The Heather M. Reisman Chair in Perinatal Nursing Research is Canada’s first endowed nursing chair.

Student aid increased, thanks to such scholarships as the Margaret A. Pringle Undergraduate Admission Award, the Dent-Paech Nursing Fellowship for Graduate Students and the Class of 5T5 and Class of 6T0 awards.

The annual Kathleen Russell dinner, which was launched in 2003 and is sponsored by RBC Financial Group, garners critical corporate support and communicates the important role academic nursing plays in research and in transforming clinical practice. “Vision is best captured with benefactors,” says Affonso.

Faculty of Physical Education & Health
“This campaign has got us out of the starting blocks and we are up and running,” says Dean Bruce Kidd.

The faculty added a new undergraduate teaching lab and equipment and garnered support for a regular seminar series that attracts visiting scholars to discuss major issues at the Centre for Physical Activity and Health for Girls and Women, and the Centre for Sport Policy Studies.

Through Project Blue, the Varsity Blues Legacy Fund has sustained and strengthened the university’s 46 intercollegiate teams, by providing a source of funding for equipment, non-league travel, extended competitive opportunities and more. Project Blue is also endowing academic scholarships and co-curricular scholarships.

Faculty of Social Work
The campaign endowed six chairs in the faculty, making “a public announcement of what we’re good at,” says Dean James Barber, citing child welfare and practicum education as examples. The faculty’s success is partly due to the volunteer efforts of Chair Shari Graham Fell, who also served on the campaign’s executive committee.

Chairs include the Dr. Chow Yei Ching Chair in Housing, and the Dr. K.K. Leung and Sons Social Work Chair in Multiculturalism, which enables researchers to study the challenges that confront new immigrants and the ways they overcome difficulties. Leading-edge scholarship is also emerging in gerontology and health-related research.
Student aid has increased, thanks to fellowships funded by RBC Financial Group, Bell Canada and 28 Ontario Graduate Scholarships, most of which were funded by campaign donors. That support, says Barber, makes the field more accessible at a time when “there’s a desperate shortage of social workers, particularly in the child welfare area.”

Barber says that the campaign has “enabled us to go forward and make advances in each of our areas and take things to a new level.”

Hart House
Hart House, U of T’s 85-year-old cultural, recreational and social centre, will be fully accessible to all its members when the installation of a new elevator is complete this summer. The federal Department of Heritage provided $495,000 toward its construction, with other major contributions coming from the Audrey S. Hellyer Charitable Foundation and a student levy.

An equally elevating initiative is the Hart House Theatre Campaign, which set a $7-million goal for a permanent endowment for the theatre. Hart House Theatre alumni Lorne Michaels, creator and executive producer of Saturday Night Live, and actor Donald Sutherland are co-chairs of the campaign. Michaels launched the fundraising effort with a major gift of his own in 2001.

Other donors have chosen to support restoration projects of architecturally significant rooms, such as the Great Hall. However they choose to contribute, Warden Margaret Hancock says people give because they discovered a passion, a skill or a gift when they participated in activities at Hart House, and they want to ensure that future students have access to all the wonders of the house.

Innis College
Dozens of would-be Norman Jewisons or Nora Ephrons will be banging at the doors – and gaining admission.
“The campaign initiated a major thrust to enhance cinema studies at U of T,” says Principal Frank Cunningham.

A $500,000 gift from Universal Studios Canada funds a screenwriter-in-residence in the college’s cinema studies program, the only such position in Canadian university film studies and one of only a handful in North America. The professional screenwriter will conduct workshops and seminars, teach credit courses, interact with both students and faculty and provide “a link to an important dimension of the film industry.”

Student aid also received a boost from scholarships and bursaries for both entry and in-course students, recognizing financial need, scholarly accomplishments and student leadership. A gift from Larry and Marla Wasser created the Wasser Achievement Awards and Wasser Scholarships, and also contributed to the new Student Services Centre.

Joseph L. Rotman School of Management
Having set out on a mission to redesign business education, the Rotman School has endowed chairs and centres that have led to new programs and leading-edge research, attracting some of the world’s top scholars and students. The Rotman School’s Canadian Credit Management Foundation Centre for Integrative Thinking is developing new models of business, and the ongoing Integrative Thinking Seminar Series has attracted big thinkers such as A.G. Lafley, Michael Lee-Chin, Atom Egoyan and Nobel laureate Michael Spence.

The Bonham Centre for Finance (established through a gift from Mark S. Bonham) is a premier research and teaching centre at the school.

New chairs include the Maple Financial Group Chair in Derivatives and Risk Management, the Sydney C. Cooper Chair in Business and Technology, and the J. Douglas and Ruth Grant Chair in Competitiveness and Prosperity.

Students are reaping the benefits of the innovative new courses introduced to the MBA program, says Dean Roger Martin, and the curriculum continues to evolve. Donations are also funding the addition of two storeys to the Rotman School – and just in time. In the past five years, the school has doubled the size of its flagship MBA program and increased its faculty. A $1-million gift from James Fleck and his wife, Rev. Margaret Fleck, helped create the Fleck Atrium, located at the heart of the Rotman building.
The Jeffrey Skoll BASc/MBA Program provides a fast track for students who want to earn a bachelor’s degree in engineering and an MBA, as well as professional experience. It is the first program in Canada to combine these engineering and management skills.

Rotman now ranks 21st in the world and is the fourth-best public-university business school outside the United States. Says Martin: “We couldn’t even hope to be a top-25 business school without the fruits of the campaign. It’s enabling us to turn our vision into reality – and we are just getting started.”

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy
U of T’s pharmacy faculty, currently spread among four buildings, will finally unite under one roof. The new state-of-the-art, 14-storey Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building was made possible through a lead private gift from Leslie L. Dan and family. (Fundraising is still underway.) Scheduled to open in the fall of 2005, the building has added a tremendous amount of excitement to the faculty, says Dean K. Wayne Hindmarsh. It will house several lecture theatres, seminar rooms, the three-level Apotex Resource Centre, research and pharmacy-practice labs, office space and an atrium. It will also enable the faculty to significantly increase the number of full-time teaching staff and double its enrolment.

The faculty also gained expertise in such areas as drug delivery, pharmacist reimbursement systems and pharmacy management with three new chairs: the F. Norman Hughes Chair, the GlaxoSmithKline Chair and the Murray B. Koffler Chair in Pharmacy Management.

The new Molecular Design Information Technology Centre, funded by the Ontario Innovation Trust, will house a “supercomputer” (built by SGI Canada and Tripos Inc.) capable of 3-D examination of protein molecules, which could lead to drug development breakthroughs.

An International Pharmacy Graduate program funded by the Ontario government now helps international pharmacists upgrade their skills in order to earn a licence to operate in Ontario. And now more money is available for student aid, thanks to industry and alumni.

As a result of the campaign, Hindmarsh says the Faculty of Pharmacy is “an exciting place to be.”

Massey College
The intellectual home of former master and author Robertson Davies is in high spirits these days.

Massey’s 40-year-old journalism fellowship program has been revived by donations from many supporters, including the R. Howard Webster Foundation, the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, the Kahanoff Foundation, the Canadian Journalism Foundation, the CBC and CTV.

The Robertson Davies Library was renovated with gifts from the RBC Financial Group, Vivian and David Campbell and numerous other supporters. A major gift from Sir Christopher Ondaatje toward the general endowment fund resulted in the naming of Ondaatje Hall.

The Quadrangle Society supported a wide range of college activities, including the Scholars-at-Risk Program and other community programs. Bursary support for graduate students tripled to $3 million. Fraser says that Massey has “outstanding graduate students doing great work in all areas of the university, and student aid is a spectacular opportunity to offer them direct support.”

New College
Studying here is akin to taking a world tour, thanks to campaign gifts that support Hindi and Bengali language courses, Romany studies, Buddhism, African studies, Caribbean studies, women’s studies and new Jungian courses.

New College also administers an international peace prize sponsored by the International Mahavir Jain Mission, which was awarded to U of T Professor John Polanyi in 2003 and the Dalai Lama in the spring of 2004. “This raises the profile of the university in the local communities that have generously supported South Asian studies,” says Principal David Clandfield.

Student aid also increased substantially, thanks to campaign gifts, the Raptors Foundation in-course scholarships and the Janka Seydegart Scholarships for Students in Feminist Studies. Students themselves voted to contribute $700,000 to bursaries, through levies on student fees.

And in 2003, New College opened a nine-storey residence with space for 277 undergraduates. It features the William Doo Auditorium, a music room in honour of M. Pamela Vanneste (a gift from Luc Vanneste) and a physical-activity room (funded by the friends of Brian Euler).

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT)
“Like a rolling snowball, each gift takes off and interacts with other things, so it ends up having more impact than just the particular chair or student that’s being funded,” says Dean Jane Gaskell.

For example, the Atkinson Chair in Early Childhood Development (a gift of the Atkinson Charitable Foundation) attracted additional funding and created partnerships within the community that makes the study of early childhood education central to OISE/UT. That increased profile has helped attract top graduate students and researchers to the field.

Similar kickstarts occurred with the William G. Davis Chair in Community College Leadership, which was established with a donation from the auto-parts firm Magna International Inc., and the Presidents’ Chair in Education and Knowledge Technologies, which was made possible by former U of T presidents George Connell, John Evans and J. Robert S. Prichard.

Launched in 1999, the Imperial Oil Charitable Foundation Centre for Studies in Science, Mathematics and Technology Education promotes scientific literacy in Canadian schools and develops effective math and science teaching methods. It has created a legacy of research and scholarship, says Gaskell.

School of Continuing Studies
U of T’s continuing-studies school is now offering courses in communities far beyond the university. With the help of a Bank of Montreal gift of marketing and publicity, SCS launched its first Continuing Studies Network in 2000, a program of courses and a lecture series in Oakville, which expanded to Markham in 2001 and to Aurora, Orangeville and Mississauga in 2003.

“Within a couple of years, we had several thousand new students in the daytime,” says Director Mary Cone Barrie. “This supports our endeavours to spread out into the community and act on our mandate of outreach.”

As well, the new Random House of Canada Student Award in Writing bolsters SCS’s already strong creative-writing program.

And lifelong learners will have an oasis on the downtown campus this fall, with the refurbishing of SCS headquarters into a glass-fronted, light-filled administrative and student-gathering space.

School of Graduate Studies
“Wonderful new opportunities and projects and programs of extraordinary quality” is how Dean Michael Marrus describes the campaign’s impact on the country’s largest graduate school. “Moreover, transformative gifts reinforce excellence as people get excited about new possibilities and raise their ambitions even higher.”

The renovation of the Munk Centre for International Studies (funded by Peter and Melanie Munk, with a multimedia conference facility outfitted by Vivian and David Campbell) brings the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, the Centre for International Studies and the Asian Institute – among others – under one roof. “That encourages each to learn and benefit from the other,” says Marrus, “so that they reinforce each other’s academic creativity.”

The Canada-Hong Kong Resource Centre is “an outstanding national resource” that was created thanks to supporters such as U of T Chancellor Vivienne Poy.

The school has new strength in museum studies (the Vivian and David Campbell Family Foundation funded an internship program here), Ukrainian Studies (with a gift from the Petro Jacyk Educational Foundation) and mathematical finance (with capital support from Ron Dembo and Algorithmics Inc.). The Scholars-at-Risk Program launched in 1999 (a joint program with Massey College, with initial help from ballet superstar Mikhail Baryshnikov and continuing support from the Donner Canadian Foundation) now assists five refugee scholars, both students and faculty.

The CIBC Chair in Youth Employment (shared with Woodsworth College) and the Bell University Labs Chair in Human Computer Interaction at the Knowledge Media Design Institute help the school attract and retain internationally renowned academics, while donor support for student aid – such as the Institute for Environmental Studies Graduate Fellowships funded by Dr. Sonia and Arthur Labatt – helps attract great students.

Life for some 2,600 doctoral students in their first five years of study also improved dramatically, with U of T’s guarantee of a minimum level of support – $12,000 a year plus tuition for humanities and social sciences and $15,000 a year plus tuition for the sciences. Thomas and Beverley Simpson’s donation provides 14 Ontario Graduate Scholarships across all subjects in the Faculty of Arts and Science.

U of T now runs recruitment campaigns in northern reserves and right across the country, thanks to a grant from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, which also supports the annual Aboriginal Awareness Week. The Gladys Watson Aboriginal Education Fund provides scholarships in graduate and second-entry professional programs. And the First Nations Mentor-in-Residence Program, funded by Scotiabank Group and based in the Transitional Year Programme, “provides a role model and support and encouragement to aboriginal students just starting out in university,” says Van Norman.

For students striving to overcome adversity, the William Waters Mentorship Program matches new U of T graduates seeking employment with mentors in the business and public sectors. During its three-year pilot run, some 30 students – mostly women, aboriginal, African-Canadian and single parents – have gained valuable contacts and support.

Transitional Year Programme (TYP)
For TYP students, campaign dollars have been “the difference between being here and not being here,” says Director Rona Abramovitch.
Mature students come into this year-long university program facing incredible financial pressure. Increased student aid, says Abramovitch, has had “an enormous impact in terms of motivating students, making them feel recognized, helping them out financially. It sends an incredibly strong message of support and commitment.” Donations for in-course financial awards help students stay in school, while graduate achievement awards provide money in recognition of their extra year of student debt.

The Steps to University Program (funded in part by a gift from HSBC Bank Canada) is a university-level course taught to Toronto high school students for U of T credit. “These students are very bright but might be at some risk of not completing high school or might not otherwise consider post-secondary education,” says Abramovitch.

An extraordinary gift from William Waters, who has also made other donations to the program, ensures that every TYP student has use of a personal computer, and it also upgraded TYP’s computer lab. “Having money, having computers, when you don’t otherwise have those things, matters enormously in real terms,” says Abramovitch. “But it also makes a substantial difference symbolically, saying that the students in this program are being supported, that they count.”

Trinity College
The new John W. Graham Library, supported by a gift from Edward S. Rogers, brought the old library from its basement home into a third-floor space in the Munk Centre for International Studies. Peter Munk gave $1 million, as did the Kinnear Foundation. Individual gifts, large and small, made up the rest of the $9-million cost of the library.

The Friends of the Library and individual donors also raised a $2-million endowment and have pledged support to cover library costs, such as book acquisition, which will strengthen Trinity’s already renowned Anglican theological and international relations collections.

The balance of donations to Trinity’s leadership campaign strengthened the college’s first-year seminar courses and its popular interdisciplinary programs. It also bolstered student awards and the architecture maintenance fund. “When stonework on Trinity’s heritage buildings comes loose, you can’t just go to Home Depot,” says Provost and Vice-Chancellor Margaret MacMillan. “You have to hire a skilled stonemason.”

University College
“We’ve moved up to another level,” says Principal Paul Perron, referring to the campaign’s impact on University College (UC).

The college gained two chairs, the Helen and Paul Phelan Chair in Drama and the Goldring Chair in Canadian Studies, which garner international attention for two of its seven college-based programs.

In 2005, the college will open Morrison Hall (thanks in large measure to a gift from Russell and Katherine Morrison), a 270-bed residence that will boost the total number of UC residence spaces to 720. This residence is expected to generate sufficient resources to renovate existing residences and transform underutilized space for student groups and commuter students.

The campaign also raised funds for health studies and sexual-diversity studies, two areas that have created incredible interest right across the city, says Perron. For example, the Mark S. Bonham Teaching Endowment in Sexual Diversity Studies has enabled the program to add one full and two half-courses.

The completion of phase two of the University of Toronto Art Centre in UC makes it Toronto’s third-largest gallery space. It will host such world-class exhibitions as this fall’s showing of Picasso’s ceramic art.

University of St. Michael’s College
“The campaign has enabled us to move decisively ahead rather than simply accept the economic conditions in play,” says President Richard Alway. St. Michael’s College has expanded its flagship academic program, Christianity and Culture, into the leading program of its kind in Canada. Started in 1979 with one course, the program now offers 26 titled courses, and explores the interactions of Christianity and world cultures throughout history. The congregation of St. Basil’s, including the Basilian Fathers of St. Michael’s and the Basilian Fathers of Michael Power High School, donated $4 million to St. Michael’s College in 1999, endowing two chairs in theology, supporting the scholar-in-residence and permanently funding the chaplaincy program. The college also has two other fully endowed chairs, thanks to campaign gifts.

In 2001, St. Michael’s also opened its first new residence in more than 40 years, Sorbara Hall. The campaign also doubled money available for student assistance, and that, says Alway, “makes an enormous difference to many of our students.”

University of Toronto Libraries
“We’re trying to make information available in whatever form people need it,” says Carole Moore, chief librarian of the University of Toronto Libraries.

The campaign transformed the first floor of John P. Robarts Research Library into the Scotiabank Information Commons. The Morrison Pavilion (a gift of Russell and Katherine Morrison), a 32,000-square-foot addition to the Gerstein Science Information Centre, added 650 new study spaces for students.

The Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, one of the major east Asian studies research collections in North America, gained a new chair. Generous gifts from the Birks Family Foundation, the John and Anne Zdunic Foundation and Vlasta Scheybal enable the ongoing expansion to the existing collection of Canadian, Croatian and Czech materials and literature. Gifts to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library include the collection of 135 Hebrew manuscripts and rare books from Alfred and Nancy Friedberg, a donation of more than 1,000 rare philosophy books from Michael and Virginia Walsh, and a bequest from Elizabeth and Edgar Collard that boosted the Fisher library’s endowment for acquisitions of Canadiana.

Members of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library George Kiddell, Dorene Seltzer, Alexander Pathy and Hilary Nicholls have endowed four lecture series. The University of Toronto Libraries digitized three major collections (making them available online), thanks to support from many private and corporate partners.

University of Toronto at Mississauga (UTM)
“UTM is at a pinnacle of unprecedented growth,” says Vice-President and Principal Ian Orchard. “We have increased our global reach in life sciences and biotechnology, as well as in communication and information technology.”

The Communication, Culture and Information Technology Building, set to open in September, is a state-of-the-art teaching facility and research centre. It was built with funding from the City of Mississauga, Hitachi Canada, GE Canada, and the Mississauga Board of Chinese Professionals and Businesses. A GE Canada-funded initiative supports the development of computer-assisted instruction.

There are two new endowed chairs: the Hatch Chair in Technology Management, and the AstraZeneca Chair in Biotechnology, which has spawned new courses, a seminar series and a new Master’s in Biotechnology Programme.

The new Centre for Applied Biosciences and Biotechnology (CABB) houses high-tech labs for nuclear magnetic resonance, gene screening and sequencing and advanced imaging technologies. It was built with support from GlaxoSmithKline, Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust.

Under the leadership of Student Centre Campaign Chair Ignat Kaneff, students and alumni contributed half of the funds to build the Student Centre, which opened in 1999. A new Athletics Wellness Centre, expected to open in 2006, was funded primarily by students through a levy plus matching funds.

The new Hitachi Survey Research Centre focuses on survey research and training social scientists in survey methods, data collection and analysis.

Student aid increased thanks to support from such donors as AstraZeneca Canada, Merck Frosst, the Associates of Erindale College and the Mississauga Board of Trade.

University of Toronto at Scarborough (UTSC)
Recent gifts have transformed learning and research at UTSC, positioning it “at the forefront of IT-based education and research,” says Principal Kwong-Loi Shun.

Students will get an impressive Student Centre in September, which they funded through a levy, and use of the historic Miller Lash House, which was restored through a grant from the Canada Millennium Partnership Program.

A generous donation from Myrianne and Gyula Lorincz helped eight UTSC divisions update computer and lab facilities. Bruker BioSpin Ltd. donated state-of-the-art equipment for UTSC’s new nuclear magnetic resonance lab, the first of its kind dedicated to research in environmental chemistry.

UTSC’s co-op programs received a boost, with the endowment of the Lectureship in Arts in a Pluralistic Society (thanks to such donors as Frank L. Mersch) for Arts Management. Funds raised from multiple donors for the International Development Studies program will support students travelling abroad to gain hands-on development experience.

Increased student aid (including three scholarships from Prudential Insurance Company of America and the Frank Faubert Scholarships from the City of Scarborough) will enhance UTSC’s ability to attract students with exceptional ability and help those in financial need.

Victoria University
The quality of life for students at Victoria University has improved dramatically thanks to generous campaign donations, says President Paul Gooch.

Vic almost tripled its endowment for student financial aid – from $11.5 million to more than $30 million – enabling it to become the only college at U of T to guarantee in-course scholarships of $1,000 to $1,500 to students maintaining a 3.5 grade-point average. “Our average grades have actually begun to show an improvement,” says Gooch.

The college also launched Vic One, which offers first-year students a unique and intimate academic experience. The program was established with the help of a $1-million bequest from the late Pauline McGibbon and a $4-million gift from the estate of Mary Mounfield.

As well, campaign funds supported the complete renovation of Burwash Hall residence and the E.J. Pratt Library (with gifts from Robert Farquharson, the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation and numerous alumni). The new Isabel Bader Theatre (a gift of Alfred Bader) includes a 500-seat, fully wired classroom space and a top-notch performance space for productions, lectures and concerts.

Woodworth College
Among its priorities for the future, Woodsworth is focusing on accessibility and achievement for its diverse student body.

Scholarships established in honour of Peter F. Bronfman and the William Waters Academic Bridging Awards – in the Millie Rotman Shime Academic Bridging Program and in commerce and finance – support both students in financial need and high academic achievers. The Thomas and Beverley Simpson Graduation Achievement Award for Single Parents provides support for single parents upon graduation. Donations from Stanley Ho and Doris Lau support scholarships for students attending the Hong Kong Summer Program, helping “offset the costs for students who couldn’t otherwise afford to go,” says Principal Mariel O’Neill-Karch.

The campaign also endowed the CIBC Chair in Youth Employment (shared with the Centre for Industrial Relations), which O’Neill-Karch calls an “important area of study” for the college.